(Refiles to remove extraneous words in first paragraph)
SEOUL (Reuters) – Hundreds of thousands of members of South Korea’s Christian groups held a service in Seoul on Sunday to protest against a landmark court ruling that acknowledged the rights of partners in same-sex couples to receive state health insurance.
The supreme court in July upheld a high court ruling that a same-sex partner was eligible for spousal benefits from the National Health Insurance Service, a move hailed as a win for LGBTQ rights in a country that has lagged others in the region.
Sunday’s massive service drew hundreds of thousands of Christians from across the country, disrupting traffic on several major roads in central Seoul.
As many as 230,000 people attended, the Yonhap news agency reported, citing police, The organisers, meanwhile, said as many as 1.1 million people took part. Calls to the Seoul metropolitan police agency were not answered.
Kim Jeong-hee, a spokesperson for the organising committee, said the verdict was unconstitutional because same-sex marriage has not been legalised.
“I think that would only be the starting point for same-sex marriage legalisation policy,” Kim said. “We see this not simply as a Christian issue, but as a huge crisis that shakes our country’s foundation.”
The court had said that with no clauses in the national health insurance act that refer to same-sex union, denial of benefits to such people constitutes discrimination based on sexual orientation.
Some participants held signs saying “oppose the anti-discrimination law” and “protect our children from gender pollution, gender confusion and gender division destruction”.
A coalition of hundreds of LGBTQ activists and Catholic and Anglican organisations issued a statement criticising the joint service as an act that denies the values of inclusiveness, diversity and respect for human rights and an attempt to infringe on the minority’s human rights in the name of the majority.
(This story has been refiled to remove extraneous words in paragraph 1)
(Reporting by Jisoo Kim and Hyonhee Shin; Editing by David Goodman)
